Spanish Flan

I have been dying to try and make some flan for about a month now, but every time I've stopped at Target since the urge to bake first struck I have forgotten to buy the ramekins I needed. Fortunately, Josh and I went out for hamburgers two nights ago at Flat Patties in Harvard Square (their burgers are fantastic, like In-N-Out or better, and they are about the same cost, maybe a few cents more), and when we left the store I noticed a shop across the way that sold all kinds of kitchen stuff. They had the perfect jars for making the sugar scrubs I've been wanting to try (they're kind of expensive, though, so I plan to only buy one), and more importantly, they had the exact ramekins I was looking to buy! I didn't want to buy a whole set, I just wanted one small one because Josh isn't a huge fan of flan (he thinks it's too sweet) and being diabetic I didn't want to be tempted to eat a ton of it.

I always thought flan would be hard to make but its actually really easy if you stir diligently and never take your eyes off the pot. Usually when you see flan its flipped upside down on a plate, but I knew I wouldn't be eating the whole thing so I left it in the ramekin so I could easily store it without it falling apart. This recipe makes enough for about six little 4 oz ramekins, or about two 14 oz ramekins like the one below. Flan keeps for several days (I've read up to a week or two, but I wouldn't try it), so if you wanted to make the 6 little ones you could just store the leftovers and eat later.

Picture's a little blurry -- so annoying!

1/2 c. sugar for caramelizing

1 tbsp. water

4-6 c. water for a water bath

2 c. whipping cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 eggs

1/4 c. sugar for custard

Ramekins

9x13 glass baking dish

garnish with a sprig of mint or blanched almonds

 The hardest part about making flan is caramelizing the sugar. Its very easy to burn and gets nasty black if you do. I was super paranoid about this, so I put everything out in prep bowls first so I wasn't frantically trying to measure something out while something else was burning or getting too cold. To make a lower calorie flan, you can substitute 1 c. low-fat milk and 1c light whipping cream. I only had heavy cream on hand, so I did 1 cup low-fat milk and 1 cup cream, and it turned out fine. 

In a saucepan (or I suppose you could do this in a microwave), heat 4-6 cups water for your baño maria or water bath. The water bath is important because it insulates the delicate custard and keeps it from over-cooking/cooking too fast, and it makes the caramelized sugar turn into a sauce. 

While this water is warming, heat 1 tablespoon water and 1/2 cup sugar in a saucepan. Stir it with a wooden spoon, constantly, until your sugar melts completely and turns a golden medium brown color. Seriously, never take your eyes off it. Remove it from heat when you are finished so the residual heat of the burner does not continue to cook it. Your sugar with be kind of syrupy in texture. Spoon your caramelized sugar into your ramekins until the bottom  of each is covered.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. In another saucepan, scald your cream. I had never (intentionally) scalded cream before, so I had to look up exactly what that meant. All you need to do is heat your cream until just before it starts to boil. There will be little bubbles but not full-on boiling bubbles. While you are scalding your cream, combine 1/4 cup sugar and three well-beaten eggs. Whisk until all the sugar lumps are gone and the sugar is mixed in thoroughly. Add your teaspoon vanilla and stir. Pour in your scalded cream at this point, and continue to whisk briskly until the sugar granules have pretty much melted.

Ladle your egg mixture into each ramekin, leaving about as much space from the top of the ramekin as I have in the picture above. Fill a 9x13 glass baking dish with a bit of water (keeping in mind that the ramekins will displace some of the water when you put them in) and place your ramekins inside. You want the water to reach up to at least 3/4 of the height of the ramekins, and you obviously don't want water getting into your ramekins.

Bake your flan uncovered at 325 for 50-60 minutes, or until a knife (I used a toothpick) inserted into the middle comes out clean. I would check it at 45 minutes and keep an eye on it every five minutes or so after that to prevent over-cooking. When the flan is done, take it out of the water bath and place it on a cooling rack until it is lukewarm before placing it in the refrigerator. Allow it to chill thoroughly, which should take about an hour. When you are ready to serve, run a knife along the inside edge of the baking dish to loosen the flan. Place a small desert plate over the ramekin covering it completely, and with one hand on the plate and the other on the bottom of the ramekin, turn the ramekin over. And you're done! Easy peasy. 

So that is what I did last night, and it was pretty tasty. Now I have to get all the caramelized sugar off my pans :/ You can do that by just putting some water in the saucepan with the sugar and heating it. I'm going to stick some water in my ramekin and warm it in the oven, which should probably work. 

Playing Agricola before we got our couch: It took up half the room!

This afternoon I went out with Josh to a really cool game store in Harvard Sq. (although it was far enough away that I would hardly call that its location) called The Games People Play, and they had just about every board game imaginable (Josh was in heaven). We ended up buying a game called Forbidden Island, which is a cooperative strategy game that got good reviews that doesn't take too long to play. Josh loves games like Agricola, which is this really intense 2+ hour strategy game. Josh and I are both really competitive, and he usually always wins, so I needed a more cooperative game to play with him. We're going to try out our new game when I get off here.

We also stopped by that store that sells all kinds of kitchen stuff again. I didn't realize it yesterday but they sold a bunch of different sized mason jars for only a dollar something! (I know you can buy them in bulk for even cheaper each, but I want to try out some homemade body scrub recipes small-scale before I go investing in mason jar gifts for 300 of my closest friends.) I was pretty pleased about that. Also, today I ordered raw shea butter (which I found for $0.32/oz if you buy in bulk), peppermint essential oil ($1.88/oz was the cheapest I could find), almond oil (which I found for $0.62/ounce! Its probably not amazing quality but it'll do perfectly), and some cosmetic containers for lip balm. It should get here in about a week, so sometime next week I hope to try out some homemade peppermint lip balm. I feel like my lips are always chapped, and chapstick is kind of expensive for how little you get. Plus, I always end up losing my favorite stick so this way I can make like 12 and have one on my nightstand, on my desk, in my purse, everywhere! :) Plus I want to use the almond oil for a brown sugar vanilla body scrub recipe I found.

I hate when I get to the end of a blog post and I have nothing more to say, but I feel like my post has no real closure. So this is the closure.